Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an operation control device, an operation control method and a computer program. The present invention particularly relates to an operation control device, an operation control method and a computer program that use a software keyboard used for entering a character in a mobile information terminal.
Description of the Related Art
In recent years, thanks to advances in electronics technology, a mobile information terminal using a touch screen is widely available. In order to enter a predetermined character using such a mobile information terminal, a user may depress a corresponding key with a fingertip or an operation body such as a touch pen, using a software keyboard that is displayed in a display and has substantially the same arrangement as an actual keyboard. However, since the software keyboard displayed on the mobile information terminal using the known touch screen is displayed with substantially the same arrangement as the actual keyboard in a limited screen area, keyboard keys become small. This is therefore a significant strain on the user's eyes, and typographical errors are prone to occur. This problem is even more noticeable in a device with a small touch screen area.
In order to solve this type of problem, a method for entering a character using a pressure sensor that can detect applied pressure has been proposed (for example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. JP-A-11-119882). In the method described in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. JP-A-11-119882, only kana characters that come at the top of each line in a 50 Japanese phonetic kana character table are allocated to each block (more specifically, when Japanese 50 kana characters are arranged vertically based on 5 vowels and horizontally based on 10 consonants, these “top kana” characters are the kana characters that come at the top of each line consisting of the same consonant, namely, “A”, “Ka”, “Sa”, “Ta”, “Na”, “Ha”, “Ma”, “Ya”, “Ra” and “Wa”). Then, when one predetermined character among the top kana characters (for example, “Na”) is touched, the touched top kana character and subordinate kana characters belonging to the touched top character (for example, “Na”, “Ni”, “Nu”, Ne”, and “No”) are displayed. At this time, after a focus is moved to a character that the user wants to select, the user can select the character by releasing the operation body from a contact surface, the focus being moved in accordance with an amount of pressure applied when the operation body touches the screen. In this way, in an operation in which the subordinate kana characters are selected from the top kana characters, it is possible to provide a software keyboard that uses the limited screen area efficiently while minimizing hand and eye movements. (See also Japanese Patent Application Publication No. JP-A-2006-39745).